Last year I ended the fall/winter season with 54 items. I was left with 64 items in the boutique after my second purge since starting The DH Closet Challenge. This means I could overhaul my entire fall/winter wardrobe, and still be left with 10 items for another year. Instead, I decided to add only 17 items from the boutique, leaving me with 47 items.

My entire working wardrobe is currently at 107 items (53 for spring/summer and 54 for fall/winter wardrobe). With 47 items left in the boutique, I am still not using 30.5% of my total wardrobe. And right now, it looks like I will finish my first year of The DH Closet Challenge with the boutique still in business.

I started the challenge in the middle of our fall/winter season, so there is the potential that I will be able to pull a few more items into my working closet from the boutique over the course of the fall/winter season.

I’m optimistic about the future of my wardrobe and have already starting forming a few goals:

The boutique will be out of business before the end of year 2. The boutique has been helpful in allowing me to slowly purge/adjust my wardrobe over time. But having a boutique is a reminder of poor shopping habits and excessive spending. It will be nice when the boutique is closed for good and I no longer have a section of my wardrobe ‘on hold’ and a constant reminder of past mistakes.

I’ll wear out items more often before replacing them. Many of my purges have been driven by the slightest sign of wear or general boredom with my clothing. Since I had many items in the boutique waiting to be worn, there was always some pressure to turnover my wardrobe. Without the boutique, I am free to turnover my clothes at a slower pace, giving me the opportunity to wear out more items before replacing them.

I’ll continue to shrink the overall size of my wardrobe, by NOT replacing everything that wears out. I’d like to reduce the size of my wardrobe a bit more than it’s current numbers so that I can maximize the number of times I can wear an item. Less clothing means I get to sport the pieces I own more often, and in turn, I get more cost per wear (or cost per use) out of my wardrobe.

Now that I have finished pre-planning for fall, it’s time to create my fall/winter shopping list and finally go shopping at my favorite sale in my next post.